Facebook has long provided Page and Group owners with the ability to 'pin' a post to the top of a newsfeed, and now Twitter is providing such a feature for a select number of high-profile Tweeters

A feature that has been available to Twitter's partnership members for around a year is to be rolled out to a select group of users for free. The 'pinned Tweets' feature will be made available to a limited number of celebrities and other high-profile users such as artists and politicians free of charge.

The move will enable those selected to use the feature to 'pin' a single Tweet at the top of their profiles. That pinned Tweet will be identified as 'promoted'. The pinned Tweet will not be shown to users of the Twitter app or TweetDeck as it only appears on the browser version of the social platform.

Pinning a Tweet with an image could help to boost engagement. Recent research by Twitter data scientist Douglas Mason found that adding photos, a hashtag, video or a quote greatly enhances the chances of a Tweet being Retweeted. Tweets with a photo attached averaged 35% more Retweets than those without and those with video were boosted by 28%.

"The fact is, people don't engage equally with every Tweet," says Twitter's data editor Simon Rogers. "But now we can confirm that adding video, links and photos all result in an impressive boost in the number of Retweets."